SC stays Madras HC order for probe into Isha Foundation, transfers case to itself

The Supreme Court, in an interim order passed on Thursday, 3 October, stayed an order of the Madras High Court issuing a direction to police in Tamil Nadu's Coimbatore to probe the Isha Foundation.

A bench, headed by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud, ordered that "police shall not take any action" in furtherance of the directions contained in the impugned judgment of the Madras High Court.

The bench, also comprising justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, transferred to itself the proceedings pending before the Madras HC and asked Coimbatore police to file its status report before the apex court. The matter will be heard next on 18 October.

The Coimbatore-based Isha Foundation, in a statement on Wednesday, said that it doesn't ask people to take up monkhood or 'sanyas' and it is home to thousands who are not monks or sanyasis.

The statement of the organisation came after Tamil Nadu Police conducted a detailed investigation in the ashram on Tuesday following the high court order.

A team of 150 police personnel, led by Coimbatore's superintendent of police K. Karthikeyan conducted the inquiry into charges of two women being kept under captivity. The high court had directed the state government and Coimbatore rural police to probe all allegations against the Isha Foundation, after a former professor of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, S. Kamaraj, had moved a habeas corpus petition that his two daughters, Geetha Kamaraj and Latha Kamaraj, were kept under captivity there.

A bench of justices S.M. Subramaniam and V. Sivagnanam, while hearing the case, interacted with the daughters of the petitioner and decided to probe the case further. The justice Subramaniam-led bench said that the court, exercising the writ jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution, was expected to do complete justice and that it was necessary to get to the bottom of the case.

It directed the additional public prosecutor E. Raj Thilak to file a status report by 4 October listing all the cases related to the Isha Foundation after the petitioner's lawyer contended that there were multiple cases involving the Isha Foundation and that a doctor serving in the organisation was booked under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses (POCSO) Act.